Donald T. Regan got in his licks Monday in his feud with Nancy Reagan, reviewing the book by his ex-boss' wife and saying that she and ghostwriter William Novak "have produced a classic of inadvertent confession." The former White House chief of staff said in the Washingtonian magazine review that Mrs. Reagan "seems incapable of understanding how her words and deeds might seem selfish, hypocritical and, indeed, even frightening to those on the outside.

Although the Santa Barbara Writers Conference is already sold out, the following is a partial list of special presentations open to the public. Events are $5 each, payable at the door. No reservations are accepted. The Miramar Hotel is three miles south of Santa Barbara off U.S. 101 at the San Ysidro exit. Call 684-2250. Friday, 8:15 p.m. Ray Bradbury, best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, will open the conference. Saturday, 4 p.m.

--Television is making an instant success of a gadget that for 40 years couldn't even find a sponsor. Response to the Quik Orange Peel surprised even Andy Rooney, who praised the fruit-baring tool on a recent segment of "60 Minutes" and notes the "letters are still coming in." "This has been mind-boggling," said Jane Blank, wife of Quick Peel inventor Wilbur Blank of Toulon, Ill. "You can't believe the reaction."

Nancy Reagan's spokeswoman today emphatically denied the First Lady said, "I don't give a damn about the right-to-lifers," as she is quoted in Donald T. Regan's new book. The former White House chief of staff, in his book "For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington," wrote that Mrs. Reagan ordered the deletion of an anti-abortion section in President Reagan's State of the Union address last year. Regan quoted the First Lady as saying: "I don't give a damn about the right-to-lifers."

Everyone knows by now that--at least by Donald Regan's account--Nancy Reagan cleared "virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made" in advance with astrologer Joan Quigley. Which got us to thinking--wouldn't it be great if we could hire Quigley to do the charts of our favorite pop stars? Unfortunately, Pop Eye couldn't afford such a heavyweight prognosticator. Instead we located Tom Hopke, an L.A. astrologer who doubles as a pop songwriter and musician.

--Thaddeus Armie Eure is going to be a tough act to follow. North Carolina's secretary of state is retiring today after a 52-year career that spanned the administrations of 12 governors and nine presidents. The 89-year-old Democrat was first elected in 1936, when he ran on the campaign slogan, "Give a young man a chance." "He is the essence of North Carolina--its symbol," said Rufus Edmisten, a Democrat elected to succeed Eure. "Governors come and go, but Mr. Thad has remained.

We have wondered from time to time who was calling the shots at the Reagan White House. But we never suspected that it was San Francisco socialite-turned-astrologer Joan Quigley. And yet, according to White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, First Lady Nancy Reagan was so obsessed with stargazing that "virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made" was cleared with her astrologer to "make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise."

Donald T. Regan got in his licks today in his feud with Nancy Reagan, reviewing the book by his former boss's wife and declaring it to be "a classic of inadvertent confession." In what may or may not be the last word in their ink-splattered battle over which one of them hurt President Ronald Reagan more, the former White House chief of staff said Mrs.

Elaine Crispen Sawyer, a trusted aide and press secretary to Nancy Reagan who was deeply involved in the response to events that defined the former first lady's public image, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital in suburban Alexandria, Va. She was 62. Sawyer, who had worked in the 1970s as a media assistant to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in California, served as Nancy Reagan's personal secretary from 1981 to 1985, then as press secretary from 1985 to 1989.